Evi Swinnen (1977, BE) is an unconventional match-maker, joining the complex dots between people, networks, and opinions. As a practice-led researcher and community-builder, she is actively investigating how to respond to crisis by building new social forms. Her early studies were in architecture at the Royal Academy in Antwerp, which led her to pursue a degree in art theory at the University of Gent. Five years of work experience as a creative coach for production and strategy in IT and communications pushed her to go back to school to get an MBA. Here, she studied financial structures and concepts of funding allocation for art organisations. As co-founder and coordinator of Timelab (Gent, 2008 - present), she has initiated and steered a number of research projects between art, industry, government and civil society. These include citizen science projects, co creation innovation and participation projects and different projects on shared public space and non-hierarchical organisation models. These projects, as research outcomes of Timelab, develop ways in which groups can leave the closed environment of the laboratory and go on the streets to initiate profound and sustainable change. As a coach and developer of participatory workshops and tools, she guides groups of people towards transformative and shared results. Swinnen is a member of the boards of several ngos and advisory groups. She was selected as Cultural Entrepreneur 2016 by the Flemish government. She published several articles on commons, cultural management, circular economy and future visions for magazines and books.